Recent reviews by Win98Tech

a finely tuned update to an underrated classic. The original was extremely ahead of its time in 1999, being a 3D open world adventure years before GTA 3 or Morrowind, as well as being fully voiced and having a non-linear approach. It ended up flying under a lot of radars but became one of those cult hits for those in the know.

Now with Second Contact, Outcast feels modern and fits right in with easy controls and QOL upgrades that make it a comfortable experience for anyone. The updated visuals retain a lot of the original's voxel charm while literally smoothing away rough edges. The modernized controls make this a much easier game to play and playing it on Steam Deck is a blast.

That said Outcast does still show its age quite often. Quests are just Matryoshka doll-esque fetch quests where everything seems to require 3 other things to happen. Travel is tediusly slow, even with a mount, and much of your time, especially after clearing a level of enemies, is spent just hiking back and forth between NPCs. The writing is good enough to keep you engaged and the voice acting has charm but it does grate on you after some time.

If you love adventure games, wanted to see what the PC's answer to Ocarina of Time was, or just enjoy campy sci fi stories than this is an easy recommendation.

mostly improves on the original while retaining what worked great. Combat has been expanded with more enemy types and smarter enemy ai forcing you to adapt more, collectibles now have tangible benefits like additional skill points, and the world is much bigger with plenty of quests to complete.

I do wish you started the game with the domination mechanic from the first game, it seems silly especially considering how much of the game is nominally based on that mechanic. Also the live-action online mechanics drag the experience down somewhat turning parts of the game into a needless slog.

Still, considering SoW tends to go on sale for just a few bucks this is an easy recommend. Everything great about SoM is still here but expanded on, the nemesis system is great as ever, and there's plenty to do.

Decent enough, especially since it tends to go on sale for like $3. Not as engaging as the Arkham games and shorter than most open world games, but the combat works well enough, the stealth is fun, and the nemesis system is really fun to play around with.

a recommendation for this DLC comes with a lot of caveat and i'm split down the middle on whether or not I like this. The vanilla game is far superior in every way but this DLC is not lacking for content. The new levels are massive, but they're also regularly confusing messes and you'll spend a lot of time wandering around wondering what that switch/valve/thing you activated actually did. The new weapons are great and feel wonderful but ammo is so scarce throughout most of the DLC. This might not be an issue but there are so many enemies and so many bullet sponges that combat began to drag on miserably by the end. Overall the entire experience is one step forward and one step back. For anyone thinking of picking it up I'd say run through the main game again and maybe wait for a sale.

The absolute classic restored perfectly. Still one of the all time best DnD games. The vanilla campaign isn't amazing but that doesn't really matter because there's always dozens of additional modules for potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay. Fun in either singleplayer or online.

Even better than the first game and addresses more than a few issues. First is no boring wandering around the empty world, centering the game in one city means everything is faster and flows better. Combat feels much better this time too, fights usually felt fair instead of overwhelming. Finally the writing is much tighter, the more focused story does a better job and the pacing is much smoother. Overall a fantastic experience and is worth playing either as a sequel or as a standalone CRPG.

Probably THE definitive Fallout style iso-RPG. Interesting story and plenty of sidequests to explore along with enjoyable and challenging combat. Early game can be brutal and many will probably bounce off it thanks to some weird difficulty spikes, but fans of classic CRPGs will fall in love pretty quickly.

Worth it just to have all the games in a singular installer. Still amazing campaigns, tonnes of fun in skirmish and multiplayer, and runs great on modern hardware. There are still issues with mod support but other than that its an easy recommendation.

needs another few rounds of patching and optimization but the core gameplay is here. Its the STALKER we loved 10 years ago and it feels fantastic to be back. The QOL improvements are across the board fantastic and its a joy to play.

Absolutely underrated in comparison to Pathfinder or Baldurs Gate 3, but an incredibly enjoyable and easy to play game. Absolutely loved the skill system that ties skills to uses per battle instead of forcing you to constantly rest all the time, made the flow faster and better. Not ground breaking but an incredible RPG for fans of the genre.